People look this up for one of two reasons: they've added a recovery app and shoppers are now getting two reminders for the same cart, or they want to keep Shopify's email but change when it sends or what it says. Both are covered below, with Shopify's own documentation linked for the exact clicks.
First: which version you have
Shopify currently has two implementations of this email, and the setting lives in a different place for each:
- The legacy email is configured under Settings → Checkout, in the "Abandoned checkouts" section. If you see a checkbox there for sending abandoned checkout emails automatically, this is your version.
- The current automation is managed from the Marketing → Automations area of the admin, and its workflow (including the wait before sending) runs in Shopify Flow. Shopify's migration page notes that moving to the automation is a permanent change.
If one of those places doesn't show the setting, you're on the other version. Shopify's abandoned checkouts page has the click-by-click path for each.
Turning it off
- Current automation: open the abandoned checkout automation from Marketing → Automations and turn it off. Turning it off keeps the automation so you can switch it back on later; deleting it removes it.
- Legacy email: Settings → Checkout → Abandoned checkouts → untick the automatic sending option → Save.
What turning it off does not do
- Abandoned checkouts are still recorded. They keep appearing under Orders → Abandoned checkouts, exactly as before. Only the email stops.
- Recovery apps keep working. Apps don't piggyback on Shopify's email — they receive the checkout data through webhooks and send their own reminders (the mechanics are in Shopify abandoned checkout API and webhooks).
- Nothing is deleted. Shopify's own three-month retention of abandoned checkouts applies either way.
If you'd rather keep it and change it
- Timing. The legacy email sends after a fixed delay chosen from a short list of hours; the automation has a wait step in its Flow workflow, which Shopify's documentation says defaults to 10 hours for a newly created automation. Either way it's a fixed interval — it doesn't adapt to when your customers tend to shop (we've written about choosing a send time separately).
- Recipients. By default the automation only emails customers subscribed to email marketing; the "To:" field can be widened to all customers. Because Shopify only records the checkout marketing checkbox once the shopper presses Pay now, the default reaches a small share of your abandoned checkouts — see why your abandoned checkouts show no marketing consent. Widening it is a policy decision for your store and jurisdiction.
- Wording and design. The legacy template is a notification template under Settings → Notifications; the automation's email is edited inside the automation itself, where you can also add a discount.
When turning it off is the right call
If you don't use a recovery app, keep it on — it's free and already configured. The case for turning it off is simple: most recovery apps, Cartback included, send their own reminder, so running both means two emails about the same cart, usually hours apart. The same goes if you want more than one reminder, a second channel such as web push, or an explicit rule for who may be contacted — those are things the built-in email doesn't do, as its documentation spells out (summarised in does Shopify have built-in abandoned cart emails?).